How to cut a tile with a bevel

Hi it’s Julie. I’m still working on my bathroom. I’m almost done, I just have a little more tile work and I thought I’d show you how I cut a bevel into my tile to make clean ends and corners.

This is my tile saw. It’s a cheapie, but I love it because it is small, portable, and easy to store.

There are a couple of drawbacks—it’s not great for large tile and to achieve a bevel cut you have to rotate the table bed which is a pain and time consuming. Gives me a headache just looking at it! So out of frustration I have devised a quick easy method for making bevel cuts.

If you need to bevel cut the full edge of a 12 x 12 tile or larger, it is probably worth the time to monkey with the bevel feature of the tile saw, but for for small tiles and trim tiles, this works great!

1. Cut a 4 inch length of 2×4 and cut a 45 degree (or the degree that you want) bevel cut at one end. Don’t cut the edge to a sharp point. leave about a 1/2 inch edge on the short end. This will give you space for your tile to hang over the edge so your wood block doesn’t hit the saw blade.

2. Measure and mark your tile. I always include a mark that shows the bevel direction, its easy to forget which way it needs to go especially if your tile saw isn’t in same area as your tile project. If there is more than a 1/2 inch of tile extending past your cut mark, trim the tile to within 1/2 inch

2. Place the tile on the wood block so that the wood block is abutting the fence and the tile will be cut along the cut mark.

3. Make your cut by carefully holding the tile on the wood block and pushing both the tile and wood past the cutting blade as evenly as possible in one smooth continuous movement.

Done, now you should have a perfectly bevel cut tile without all the fiddle factor!

Comments

OMG! I love this post. I did my own tile floors in my bathroom & back entry/stairway…. but when it came to doing the subway tile for my tub surround I chickened out. The tile guy I hired told me “If you can do a great job on that floor on that curved front tub, you can do this. OH WAIT! Did I just talk myself out of a $200 job?”

I watched him while he took a whole hour to do the surround perfectly. He also gave me plenty of tips… but none like this one.